Of Prostitution in Russia.
Russia, included by courtesy among civilized states, retains strong traces of its original barbarism. Resembling China in its system of government, it resembles it also in manners. What is admirable in its social characteristics arises from the natural good qualities of the people, who, notwithstanding a despotism which has wanted no feature to degrade them, please the traveller by a display of many signs of good disposition.
Russia resembles Asia in the indolence and apathy of its population. In the one region nations appear to have been enervated by heat, in the other benumbed by cold into a torpid submission to power. This is evident from the state of public manners. In Russia the inquiry is not what is essentially wrong, but what is wrong according to the police; and nothing else is condemned. Abject towards their rulers, they assume towards others the arrogance of slaves, so that a succession of tyrants may be said to exist from the emperor who tramples down sixty millions, to the peasant who oppresses his serving-boy.
No more striking proof could be mentioned of the fact that the condition and character of women form an infallible measure of civilization, than the state of the sex in Russia. It is true that our knowledge is very incomplete. Most travellers who have written on that country complain how difficult it is to describe it well, and they have generally verified their remark; still we learn enough from various authorities to enable us to judge in a general way of its characteristics.
Among the higher classes women affect and study a polish and refinement of manners, but this relates chiefly to the formalities of life. They dare not, under their own social code, make an inelegant salutation, transgress a point of etiquette, ride in an unfashionable equipage, or converse in a vulgar tone; but they may break the most sacred moral laws, may speak openly of indecent subjects, and may act and talk in a way which a modest English lady would blush to think of. The position they hold in society is in accordance with this view. Formerly marriage was little more than a bond between master and slave; but the relation has been, in that respect, improved. Women are to a certain degree independent, but it is the independence of neglect. They lead, in a word, a life very nearly resembling that of fashionable persons in our own metropolis, but their morals are not to be compared.
Little need be said of the marriage contract in Russia, since it is under the laws of the Christian church. It is, however, necessary to mention that few engagements occur between persons mutually united by affection. Interest is the usual tie; and frequently a girl is taken to the altar, where her appointed husband stands before her, all but an utter stranger. The ceremony is so theatrical that it wears no solemnity whatever. It is a drawing-room scene, directed by priests; so that the very seal of matrimony is of such a kind as to impress the woman with no idea of a holy union. The wives of the Russian nobles have accordingly little reputation for fidelity to their husbands; a characteristic observed by Clarke, long ago, as he travelled, and confirmed by Mr. Thompson, who wrote a year or two since, as well as by many other writers. Immorality and intrigue are of universal prevalence, from the palace to the private house. In a social sense they are scarcely looked upon as offences. The husband and wife, united by a bond, not of affection but of policy, look on each other from the first with coldness and indifference. Gradually each withdraws in a separate circle of life, and at length one looks without much care upon the guilt of the other. Before marriage the sexes are divided by etiquette, after marriage by mutual repulsion. The women, inferior in personal attractions, but superior in manner and acquirements to the men, receive from them little respect; and thus society, poisoned in its very springs, becomes yearly more dissolute and melancholy.
None will require to be reminded that numerous exceptions occur; that pure and strong family attachments exist in Russia; that young persons marry sometimes influenced by reciprocal feelings of affection; but from the accounts of all the writers we know who have described Russia, no other picture of its society could fairly be drawn. There is in that state licence for every crime which does not offend the government; and the more the nation is absorbed in its sensual enjoyments, the less will it be disposed to weary of servitude.
Among the peasantry sensuality is equally prevalent. They generally marry very young, but it is by no means essential that the bride should be a virgin. On the contrary, numbers of women never marry until they have had an intrigue with some other lover.
St. Petersburgh, it is said, is a city of men, there being, in a population of about 500,000, 100,000 more males than females. The native Russians are less handsome and sooner faded than the women of Germany, Finland, Livonia, Esthonia, and Courland—countries which supply the state with prostitutes. Such are the manners of the city that no woman may walk out unless accompanied by a man, not even on the great promenades, in the broad light of day.
In ten years, from 1821 to 1831, the deaths in St. Petersburgh were 61,616, being 24,229 more than the births; and during the same period there were 11,429 marriages. The native Russian women are remarkable for the ease with which they bring forth children, while the foreigners in that country are precisely the reverse. Of the former, 15 in 1000; and of the latter, 25 is the average of those who die in childbed. The average of 20 years gives 6 still-born infants out of every 1000.
The foundling hospitals of Russia, magnificent as they are, cannot but be regarded as a premium upon immorality. Those of St. Petersburgh alone cost from 600,000,000 to 700,000,000 of rubles annually; supporting from 25,000 to 30,000 children, who are received at the rate of 7000 or 8000 a year. They are called “houses of education,” because a prejudice attaches to their proper name. They are not, however, intended for infants who are picked up in the streets. There is never a case of such exposure. Women who have children of which they desire to be rid, bring them usually in the twilight, and they are taken in without any questions being asked. No one can tell whether they are legitimate or illegitimate—whether the offspring of poverty, adultery, or prostitution. In cases where fear or shame might in other countries induce a woman to murder or abandon her child, the mothers bring them to the hospital, and impenetrable obscurity remains over the previous part of the transaction. It is questionable whether the crimes thus prevented would make up an amount of evil equal to that caused by the profligacy to which the licence of impunity and encouragement is thus afforded.
Violence committed on a woman, married or single, is, in Russia, punishable by the knout; but this is almost the only check which the law, written or social, imposes on immorality. It is said that judges sometimes compound with a female criminal who happens to possess beauty, and pardon her at the price of her virtue.
When a French writer, many years ago, astonished the civilized countries of Europe by the description of a private institution in Russia known as the Physical Club, his report was rejected by the majority of persons as one of those travellers’ tales which had their origin in a man’s impudence or credulity. Lyall, however, made extensive inquiries upon the subject, and found that there did actually exist at Moscow a society called the Physical Club, the object of which exhibited, perhaps, more depravity of manners than could be found in any other part of the world, except among the Areois of the Pacific.
This club was originated by eight men and women of high rank, who agreed to hold common intercourse with each other, and for that purpose established a society. Its members all belonged to the nobility, and they sought to exclude all but beautiful women with the bloom of youth still upon them. Admittance was very difficult to be procured. A person before being initiated was sworn to secrecy, so that the names of the members remained unknown.
At stated intervals the members of the club assembled at a large house, where, in a magnificent saloon, brilliantly lighted up, they indulged in every kind of licentious amusements, inflaming themselves with strong potations, and preparing for the hideous orgies which were to follow. Suddenly all the candles were put out, each man chose a companion, and a scene of indescribable debauch ensued. On other occasions tickets were drawn by lot, and the company paired off to bedchambers prepared for this libidinous festival. This horrible institution, transferring its pestilential influence through every circle of society in Moscow, was abolished by Catherine the Second, who hated to see the reflection of her own vices—for it is matter of history that she was a vulgar prostitute herself.
Of the prostitute system in Russia our accounts are the most scanty possible. They exist in large numbers in every city and almost in every village; and a traveller remarks that they have the character of demanding to be paid beforehand, and refusing afterwards to remain with their companion. They do not form so distinct and conspicuous a class as in some countries, for the virtue of married women and young girls in the various ranks of life is not so inaccessible as to distinguish the professional prostitute so broadly from the other classes, as in a society whose manners are less corrupt. They are, in the cities, under the perpetual surveillance of the police. In the rural districts numbers of young women, belonging to the village populations, addict themselves to prostitution for gain—some permanently, others only until they have a chance of marriage.
There is apparently no check upon this calling, unless the women become afflicted by disease. When this is discovered the prostitute is forced to discontinue for awhile her dissolute course of life, and remain in a hospital until cured. When, as very frequently happens, the wife of a soldier takes to this occupation, and becomes tainted, she is delivered to her husband, who is obliged to sign a bond, engaging for the future to restrain her from profligacy. The wives of serfs are also delivered up to their husbands, who must pay the expenses of their cure at the hospitals. If they refuse to do this, and to answer for the future conduct of their partners, the women are sent, without further ceremony, to Siberia.
Another peculiarity in the civilization of Russia is exhibited in the market of wives, which is annually held in St. Petersburgh. It is one of those things which many persons exercise their philosophy by refusing to believe; but its existence is undoubted. It is still practised, even among the upper orders, while among the humbler classes it is extremely popular. Every year, on the twenty-sixth day of May, numbers of young women assemble in a particular part of the City Summer Garden, where they are exhibited in a formal “bride-show.” Decked with an Oriental profusion of ornaments, all the marriageable girls are arranged in lines along the shady alleys, while some friends and professional match-makers stand in attendance on each group. The men who are inclined to matrimony visit the garden, pass along the rows of maidens, inspect them leisurely, enter into conversation, and, if pleased, enter into a preliminary, but conditional, contract. Numerous matches are thus formed; but very frequently the engagement here concluded, has long, between the youthful couple, been a matter of contemplation. Those who do not possess sufficient beauty or fascination are sometimes loaded with the signs of property to induce men to take them. A mother once, desiring to match her daughter to a man of substance, hung about her neck a massive chain of gold, to which was attached six dozen silver-gilt tea-spoons, and three dozen table-spoons, besides two heavy punch-ladles of the same metal, which soon attracted the attention of the young men. In the towns, indeed, we are told that marriages among all classes are generally settled by interest. In the rural parts this is also the case, but in a less degree. There it is the custom—among the peasantry—for the bride and bridegroom to enter the church door side by side, which they take care to do with the utmost regularity, since the superstitious idea prevails, that the one who plants a foot first inside the threshold of the edifice, will be supreme over the other, and become a tyrant in the family. The serfs cannot marry without the consent of their masters. In all parts of Russia the marriage of a felon is dissolved by the sentence which condemns him; but if he be pardoned before his wife has married again, he can recover her.
It will, from this account, be seen that the manners and morals of the Russians are dissolute in an extraordinary degree. There is, perhaps, no part of Europe where the people, as a race, are so profligate. This does not imply that the society of St. Petersburgh or Moscow is not distinguished by many virtuous families; but, on the whole, all travellers concur in showing the facts upon which we have based our estimate of the national character with respect to morality[84].